Jerusalem: a city on edge

The old city of Jerusalem is the singular
most contested city in human history.

Jerusalem from Mount of Olives, Alex.S/Wikicommons.With recent violent unrest, Jerusalem is once
again in
turmoil. It is the most amazing and craziest city in the world. In the labyrinthine bazaars of the old
city in East Jerusalem, ultra-orthodox Jews with their long, braided hair pass hurriedly
by fully- veiled Muslim women, while Christians carry a large cross on their
shoulders to experience the sufferings of Jesus.

The old city of Jerusalem is the singular
most contested city in human history. Early pagans built their monuments there.
Then came the Jews, twice building their temple on the same location, only to
be ruined by Babylonians and then Romans. At the dawn of Christianity, Christ
challenged the Roman authorities and was crucified there, and later Christians
built the holy Church of Sepulcher close to the ruins of the temple. With the
emergence of Islam, Prophet Mohammad is believed to have used the location for
his night journey to heaven. Then Arab Muslims came and built the Dome of the
Rock and Al-Aqsa mosque on top of the compound that Jews call Temple Mount, and
named it the Noble Sanctuary.

Why all the wise prophets chose this
location originally is beside the point. What is important is that claims
placed on this most historical real estate, have led to so many wars, crusades,
and occupations.

After
1948

After the first Arab-Israeli war and the
creation of Israel in 1948, the armistice line cut through the city. West
Jerusalem became part of Israel, and the East was occupied by Jordan, each
expanding the borderline of the city. In the six-day war in 1967, Israel occupied
East Jerusalem, unified the city, declared it the Jewish Capital and later
annexed it. The UN Security Council through three resolutions (UNSC 252 in 1968, and 476, and 478 in
1980) declared the decisions “invalid,” “null and void,” and “censored” “the
occupying power” [Israel] “in the strongest terms.” (The first resolution was ratified by 13 of the 15 Security
Council member countries: the US and Canada abstained. The second and third resolutions
were ratified by 14 members, with only the US abstaining.) No country apart
from Costa Rica recognized the unified Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and all
embassies are in Tel Aviv.

Israel followed a two-pronged policy
towards Jerusalem; one dealing with territorial change, and the other with
population change.

Territorially, Israel enlarged further the
borderline of the city, particularly on the eastern side where that included a
large chunk of Palestinian territory in the West Bank. Today’s Jerusalem is
almost four times the original size before the creation of the state of Israel.

Another aspect of the territorial change
was to enclose the enlarged Jerusalem from the West Bank. This was done, and is
being done, through a long and continuous process of surrounding it with large
Jewish settlements inside the West Bank.

As for changing the configuration of the
city’s population, Israel on the one hand moved or encouraged more Jews to live
in Jerusalem, and on the other hand pushed more Palestinians out of the city.
New settlements were built in East Jerusalem, even inside the old city. Any
Palestinian resident of Jerusalem who is deemed ‘absent’ loses his/her residency
in Jerusalem and his/her property is sold to a Jewish family. Now close to 200,000
Jews live in the enlarged East Jerusalem, and their rate of population growth
has now surpassed that of the Palestinians.

A
volatile situation

These policies and their steady
implementation have created a volatile situation that has put the city on edge.

Although Palestinian Jerusalemites enjoy
some privileges in terms of access to the Israeli social welfare system,
education, and the relative freedom of commuting between Jerusalem and the West
Bank, they are outraged about the occupation and the ongoing shrinkage of their
space.

These policies have also rendered
impossible the Palestinian demand for the establishment of their state capital
in East Jerusalem, one of the biggest hurdles in any genuine peace process.

Of all complex issues of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, from land and border, the refugees and right of
return, to water distribution, Jerusalem is the most contentious. The right-wing Israelis insist on the
inseparability of the city as the Jewish capital, and the Palestinians want
their capital on the East part of the city, and insist that they cannot give up
Jerusalem because it is Islam’s third holiest city.

Yasser Arafat’s statement during the tough
negotiations of the Camp David II in 2000 pointed to this fact. In response to Bill
Clinton’s insistence on their accepting “custodianship” (not sovereignty) over
the Temple Mount/Noble Sanctuary, Arafat responded, “Mr. President, do you want
to come to my funeral?” He was simply underlining the importance of Jerusalem
to millions of Muslims.

The custodianship of the compound from the
inception of the Israeli occupation of East Jerusalem has remained under Jordan’s
Waqf Authority. Even now the
whole administration of the compound, including permission to enter, is at the
behest of the Waqf. The security outside the gates of the compound is under the
auspices of the Israeli police.

Many of the houses close to the Damascus
Gate outside of the Old City are also owned by the Waqf authority. The Oslo
Accords that created the Palestinian Authority did not change this situation,
and the 1994 Peace Agreement between Israel and Jordan reinforced Jordanian
control over the shrines. (Jordanian government reaction to the recent turmoil
and withdrawal of their ambassador from Israel should be seen in this context.)
The Camp David II agreement just wanted to transfer the custodianship of the
compound from Jordan to Palestinians.

A
brief moment of hope

The closest the two sides have ever been on
this issue, was at the Taba Summit in 2001, when both sides agreed on the idea
of Jerusalem as an open city, having a Jewish section in the West (Yerushlaim)
to be capital of Israel, and a Palestinian section in the East (Al-Quds) to be
capital of Palestine. Although this agreement left many unresolved issue, and
had many weaknesses, particularly in relation to the territories left for
Palestinians in the West Bank (as in all the other peace negotiations Palestinians
were not supposed to have a continuous territory and their cities had to be
surrounded by Jewish settlements), nevertheless the Taba Summit represented an
important advance in relation to Jerusalem and the refugee question. But when
Ehud Barak’s government fell, he wrote to the US President that what he had
agreed in Camp David and Taba was not binding on the new Israeli government (of
Ariel Sharon). Another important
moment was lost.

Jerusalem will continue to be on edge for
as long as there is no genuine peace, and we will witness more serious confrontations,
increased radicalization on both sides and sad consequences. A major part of
any peace agreement has to deal with the fate of Jerusalem and how the city
would be shared as a capital of the two states.

About the author

Saeed Rahnema is Professor of Political Science and Public Policy at York
University, Toronto

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